


Ascendant

by farfallanotte



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Chaotic Evil, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Demons, Demons Are Assholes, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Homebrew Content, Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, Non-Consensual Bondage, Original Character(s), Parent/Child Incest, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shameless, Shameless Smut, Smut, Succubi & Incubi, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21698053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfallanotte/pseuds/farfallanotte
Summary: To rise in the Abyss, one must first be fiend. Tiefling Nisrah Nyrel seeks occult apotheosis, regardless of what she faces.
Kudos: 6
Collections: A League of Their Own





	1. First Apotheosis (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Book of the Damned contains many things, including a series of fiendish rites of transformation. The only way to ascend to a Lady of the Abyss is to become of it. What's a girl to do?

  
_Ego coniuro vos  
insolubiliter ad mei potenciam aligati  
Ad me, sine prestolacione venire   
Debeatis aperiat  
Huc sine mora debeas pater!  
_  


Try as she might to clear her mind of everything but the incantation, Nisrah simply could not. While she felt momentarily at home with the night air caressing her bare skin, tension and apprehension held her closer still and her body trembled to remind her of it. Her warm exhalations hung visibly in the air and she found that the quick tempo of her shallow breaths only served as another jeer of her nerves. 

“It’s just the sodding cold,” she muttered, wrapping her free arm around herself as though it could offer her protection against the chilled briny air. While of questionable validity, the explanation still offered her a moment of respite from her unease.

Feeling renewed conviction in her task, she took a long step across the jagged gravel of the outcropping, avoiding the sharpest of it, and placed the final of nine copper censers. Though it was well into the witching hour by now, the full moon offered enough illumination that she could clearly make out each of those she had previously placed and discern the pattern of it. 

An errant gust of wind blew in off the Oprelan Gulf and gave her a brief pause. This was only her second winter here and the wind’s biting chill was still foreign and jarring to her. She adapted well to most things, but this weather was something she had substantial difficulty accepting. She reached for a memory of her home, where sexual energy thrummed and the humidity of mingling bodies warmed her soul as it did her flesh, and held it close in mind to give her warmth and courage.

She sighed wistfully. It might not be home, but if this rite was to be done today, it was Pellis where it must be performed.

Still wrapped tightly around herself, she found her place in the center of the arrangement of censers. She reluctantly loosened her arms, exposing her body again to the cold, and began to inscribe the runes of the next step into the air around her. She kept the runes large, as a child first learning them might, and felt small and foolish at this even knowing smaller runes would run the risk of her shivering limbs miscasting them. Fortunately, she did not have to entertain those feelings long as the symbols themselves were complicated and required an amount of finesse that demanded all her concentration.

When she finally paused, goosebumps were pricking from underneath a thin layer of shimmering perspiration down her arms. The air hung still and pregnant with a waiting tension before she resumed her task and immediately in front of herself scribed the sigil of her patron.

_“Socothbenoth, hear my words.”_

The sigil of Socothbenoth sparked, causing the air around her to crackle with red electricity, matching the hue of the night’s red moon. The smell of ozone lingered and with wide eyes she dropped to her knees. With a few whispered words, the censers lit simultaneously and the smell of ozone rapidly gave way to a melange of cedarwood, ylang ylang and other exotic aromatics. She had spent nearly two weeks trying to haggle with a merchant for the latter, and it seemed only fitting now that she ultimately traded her _services_ for it. Her lips quirked with satisfaction at the memory and she fidgeted on her heels, eventually settling atop them with her knees splayed wide. 

Then she turned her attention to the subdued abyssal larvae that pulsed and squirmed on the ground before her.

She regarded the larvae, which though near in size to a grown man more closely resembled a weeping grey maggot, with nothing less than absolute repugnance. Its appearance alone was enough to ensure that, but the price she paid Yhven to get it here fueled a resentment to which she could not put words. There was no love between her and her cambion half-brothers, as one could expect from the Abyss; but she wasn’t above bargaining with them nor they her. She had simply lacked any leverage in this exchange and the price she ended up paying was beyond any reckoning she could have anticipated. Long ropes of knotted scar tissue twinged sharply across her back and she bit down hard on her tongue to swallow a scream. The taste of blood blossomed in her mouth and her tail flicked in annoyance. “Qlippoth take him,” she spit. She wasn’t sure if she intended it for the larvae or her brother, but she knew she meant it.

Focusing back on her task, she reached for the soot-stained cloth bundle next to larvae. From within its folds, she pulled out a heavy steel rod two fingers in width and the length of her forearm. Quaking limbs and distracted thoughts worked against her for only a moment, but it was long enough to misjudge the balance of the rod, and it teetered once in her grip and then slipped with a clatter to the crushed stone beneath her. The sound drew a shrill cry from the larvae and it began to thrash about wildly. She recoiled in horror and embarrassment, whispering every curse she knew in Common at herself under her breath, before she snapped up the rod, and in a single, fluid motion pierced through the writhing creature.

She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held as the enchantment wrought into the steel rendered the creature silent and still once more. With a last few curses, this time in Abyssal, she heaved another breath; this one of relief. While she was grateful she had thought to bring the tool, it was difficult to ignore that her own inattentiveness created the need at all.

For the second time tonight, she had to push down the feeling of being small and foolish. It would serve no purpose to her, so she refused to engage with those thoughts. She imagined them flowing out through her fingertips into the rod she still held. Instinctively, she flexed her fingers as she imagined the outpouring of those thoughts; and, as was habit, she stretched the muscles that had once attached to vestigial wings. Like an uncontrolled flame, resentment towards this creature burned white-hot once more in the vacant place those feelings had been and, with a scowl, she drove the rod deeper into the larvae until she felt stone crunch on the other side. 

Nisrah took a deep breath to regain her composure, making certain she was in control of herself before reaching again into her satchel. From within, she removed a clay bowl inscribed so deeply with demonic runes it seemed they should pierce clean through. The runes smouldered with the same red light she had seen before and she could almost hear the hum of magic radiate off them. Speaking to its cambion creation, the bowl was too large for one of her hands but fit comfortably enough in two, and she felt the frisson of magic weave up her fingertips into both of her arms. 

With a hushed reverence, she placed the ceremonial vessel on the ground beside her and reached back into her bundle. She drew out a tube of coarse, gnarled glass filed to a sharp point on one end. Its surface was pocked and marked where sand had imperfectly fused together in a lightning strike. She traced over its familiar lines as she had dozens of times before; her fingers dipped and trailed across it, and she could feel several spots where she had worried the gritty glass into something almost smooth. She wasn’t certain if the fulgurite was necessary for the ritual, but as a gift from Socothbenoth himself she assumed it couldn’t hurt her cause. 

Handling the glass with a care reserved for something so precious, she guided its sharp point to her left palm. With clenched teeth and a hissing breath, she carved out a path across its width. As she tipped her hand to run the red stream of blood into the bowl, her lips quirked in a wry smile at the irony of using blood from what a fortune-teller once called her mortal life line to begin a new life as something _more._

She began to worry at a knob of the fulgurite with her thumb while she waited for her blood to pool to the ritual’s satisfaction in order to avoid thinking about everything that came next. When that finished, she licked the self-inflicted wound allowing the salty mineral taste to resteel her resolve.

When she could find no further reasons to put off her task, Nisrah flicked her eyes toward the larvae. She wasn’t sure when but her hands had started trembling again, and it was trembling hands that gripped the fulgurite tightly and dug it through the larvae’s chitinous carapace and into its fleshy innards. She could hear the cracking of chitin before she could see the progress she made as she ran the sharpened glass down the length of its body. As the creature split open, a cloying aroma like spun sugar, violet, and wet moss assaulted her, and she found herself instantly drawn towards it. It smelled like home; and for the first time, she was overcome with empathy for this creature’s former mortal soul.

She set the fulgurite down, kissed her fingers and pressed them to the larvae’s best approximation of lips. With any fortune at all, this creature’s sacrifice would mean she might yet avoid this fate herself. She bowed her head to the creature and scrunched up her face with distaste over what came now. Looking away, she pushed her hand into the opening she had carved. Fighting hard to not think too deeply about her circumstances, she decided the experience was a bit like being up to your elbow in hot jam or oatmeal, and in her heart she knew she would eat neither again. Minutes ticked by like hours before she pulled her hand free of the creature’s grasping internal ooze with her prize clutched tightly in her fist. She shook her arm to dislodge the worst of whatever was still clung to her body, and fairly certain she could stomach what remained, she opened her eyes and turned towards the creature.

Like a broken doll, the larvae was motionless in a way that not even magic could induce; it was no longer shuddering or wheezing for air, and for the first time its eyes were not rolling in fear. She reminded herself that if she hadn’t gotten to the larvae first, it almost certainly would have been someone - or something - else, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel some vindictive delight that at least something came away worse than her in her dealings with her brother. She wiped some of the lingering viscera off her arm before it could dry out and become itchy in the exposed air, and uncurled her hand to review her treasure.

  
In her palm rested two lumps of charcoal colored flesh. She hadn’t been able to translate what they were from the pages Yhven had copied for her of the rite, but looking at their wobbly egg-shape, she was suddenly glad for it. She dropped them into her bowl and wiped her hand off on the gravel before reclaiming her shard of fulgurite. She turned it in her hand to grip the narrow, filed edge, minding the sharp end carefully. Treating bowl and shard as one might a mortar and pestle, she used the blunt end of the fulgurite to mash the contents of the bowl together. 

The concoction came together slowly. Whatever she had taken from the larvae was spongy yet fibrous and fought against all but her most concerted efforts to incorporate it with her blood. Eventually it surrendered to her labors, but not before her arms felt weak and tired from the exertion. She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and tucked the hair that had dislodged from her loose braid back behind her ears. She wasn’t sure how long she had worked over the bowl, but she could feel sweat trail down her spine and her thighs were stiff from having remained kneeling so long. 

More weary than before, she reached once more into her pack and exchanged the fulgurite for a small potion flask with a wax sealed cork stopper. Layers of enchantment on the bottle produced a warm thrum against her skin, and she was loathe to shed this small protection against the cold from her hands. Drawing out her time, she reviewed the viscous opaline fluid and mused how an entire year of chaos seeded in the name of her lord could be reduced to such a small thing.

Once her hands were suitably warmed through, she used her nails to crack the wax around the top edge of the seal. She wriggled the cork in her hand, and when it didn’t immediately loosen, she wrapped her tail around the neck of the bottle and used both hands to dislodge it. She felt the magnitude of value of each ingredient in this rite, and took great care to not shake the bottle’s ingredients more than necessary. She added its contents to the bowl, and cast aside the emptied vessel. The discordant clatter of it shattering against rock marked its purpose as fulfilled. With her tail, she gave the mixture a final stir and leaned over the bowl to see what she had wrought.

Peering down, she found a thick substance roughly the color and consistency of wet mud. The smell, however, was unlike anything she had smelled before and she felt herself struggling between being repulsed and being drawn in. All at once, it was decadence and decay; sugar and sulfur; ambrosia and aluminum. To her chagrin, she found herself trembling again as she dipped two fingers into the mixture, which held to her skin like molasses and was not so much dripping as steadily oozing downwards. With as much purpose as she could summon over her nerves, she pressed her fingers to her lower lip and drew a straight path down the length of her body to her mons. She took a steadying breath, then raised the heavy bowl to her lips. Screwing her eyes shut, she tipped the bowl back to let its contents slide down the back of her throat.

The salty, tannic concoction oozed across her tongue and she choked back a gag; her entire body lurched forward with racking heaves of desperation to expel the profoundly unpalatable elixir. Yet she persevered. Once nothing more came from the bowl, she swallowed and finally succumbed to the urge to double over with more retching shudders. From somewhere outside herself, she felt the bowl roll from her hands, and her body was still reeling as she struggled to right herself and place her empty hands on her thighs with her palms facing skyward. With a tremulous breath and several more convulsions, she willed herself still and sought out the veil that separated this reality from the Abyss.

As her mind reached out, the first first effects of the unholy elixir began to assert themselves. She felt warm; warmer than she had actually thought was possible. Her skin flushed, and the heat moved swiftly from her core to pool between her legs. Somewhere, distantly, she thought she heard herself whimper; this untended rising desire was alien in its potency and unwelcome in this moment. Hers was the lord of taking his desires as he saw fit, and she understood enough to know that whatever came of this unfettered heat now was his whim. Nisrah’s lip had just begun quivering with frustration when she found what she sought.

She pierced suddenly through the veil, and for an instant she felt the familiar domain of her home. She grabbed onto it with everything she could offer. Magic coalesced around her in rippling waves of red light, electrifying her skin and making her blood burn. Power flowed through the connection, and she felt a ripple of it move through her body as she tore a small piece of this domain into the material plane. 

The portal opened like a scream and lasted just long enough for her to open her eyes and watch it distort, twist, and then finally fizzle out entirely.

She gasped sharply at what remained and her voice was little more than a whisper when she finally spoke. 

“Father.”


	2. First Apotheosis (Part Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evil comes in many forms. Sometimes you are related to it.

_Ianua Magna abyssus  
clausa est ob nos,  
lumine eius ab oculis nostris retento.  
Sed nunc stamus ad limen huius  
ianuae magnae et demisse,  
fideliter, perhonorifice,  
paramus aperire eam._

Although he appeared now in a form almost passing as human, Yrel didn’t look at her the way one person looked at another; he looked at her the way a hunter looked at its prey, the way a wolf looked at a rabbit. Fierce hunger and awful power burned behind his eyes, and her stomach twisted viciously as fear and desire converged into a single tumultuous wave of emotion.

To say she was afraid of him was far too simple. Her feelings for the incubus usually muddled somewhere between reverential awe and measured fear. Like most of his kind, his desires were uniquely sadistic and rapacious, though more often than not, his tipped further into relentless destruction. He spoke of age and mortality in a truly non committal way that left her uncertain of his age, but she had heard the hushed whispers of how small his family was; it was something of note then, she knew, that she had only three siblings from the many dozens of mortals he’d bedded. That assumed, of course, that somehow the trail of bodies he left in his wake wasn’t testament enough to his pleasures. 

She shivered, but not from the cold. He taught her early in life, familial bonds would afford her leniency to his physical whims, but he could not help himself but _hurt_. 

Even with lingering musings on her well-being, it was vulnerability that overrode her other senses and made her act. She was playing the part of the animal that sprung the trap but wasn’t yet ready to succumb to it. She wrapped her arms around her breasts and scooted backwards away from him as far as her censer ring would allow her. Without removing her eyes from him, and not bothering to hide her distrust, she drew her knees up against her body. From his knowing smile and the hunger in his eyes, she understood the gesture was futile; she had never known him to give up on his quarry, and she doubted she would be the first. Still the feelings his presence wrought were overwhelming and she was glad for the space to breathe and better get her bearings. 

Her kin were all lovely, but time and experience had given Yrel an understanding of aesthetics that set him above most. Black hair pooled like the softest silk to his shoulders, and dark eyes sparkled with predatory intent from underneath long lashes. From the harsh plane of high cheekbones, the square of his jaw, broad shoulders and trim waist he was formed with such perfect lines she wondered if there were even a geometry to explain him. His bronzed skin was decorated with runic white ink that traced stories and conquests across the muscled planes of his chest. Her eyes lingered on his lips; they’d always been her favorite; lips that were so plush and pink she nearly found herself darting her tongue over her own.

His was a wicked beauty and, as always, she fell under its spell.

He had come through the gate topless but for the rich leather of his wings which he folded across his back like a cloak. Thick pieces of gold banded his upper arms and bracelets of entwined serpents encircled his wrists. His breeches were fitted, leaving little to the imagination, and of a soft make from the hide of a creature she didn’t recognize, but surely didn’t exist on this plane. A loosely wrapped cord of black hemp secured them low on his hips. His poise was a lazy sort of arrogance and control that she might find contemptible if it weren’t so alluring. 

She bit her lower lip, ruminating over it. Everything about Yrel spoke to a singular purpose, and she knew her lord had done her no favors in sending him. 

When her father finally spoke, his voice came as a low seductive purr of Abyssal speech. “Your petition has been received, Nisrah N’yrel.”

She recoiled from him. His expression had become darkly feral; and though his lips pulled back from his teeth, she would never say he was smiling. “Now I’m here to consummate the pact.”

He struck like a cobra as the last word left his lips; the distance between them closing before she could react. Long, impossibly strong fingers coiled around her neck as he tangled his other hand into her hair. Tears pricked unbidden in the corners of her eyes as he jerked her head back. 

“Did you think you were done, little one?” he hissed. His warm breath tickled against her ear, and an invasive tendril of desire curled in her stomach. In vain, she struggled to shake her head in answer, and she could feel a true smile curling at the edges of his lips. His grip on her neck constricted and when she parted her lips to seek air, only choked sobs spilled out.

He held her like that for a time, a predator savoring its quarry before the kill. She was trembling once again, but as his breath came warm and dangerous against her ear she knew this time it was deserved. Like the trapped rabbit she felt, her eyes darted about wildly for escape without avail. He was so much stronger than her, and the loose threads of her magic hung outside her grasp somewhere next to the oxygen for which her head and lungs screamed. A heaviness made her head swim as oxygen spiralled out and adrenaline filled the void it left, and by that adrenaline alone she remained cognizant of the bursts of white light that flashed in time with her rabbiting pulse. She felt herself bump against the cusp of consciousness and she began clawing frantically at his hand for release. For the first time, uncertainty plumed in her stomach that she would actually see the end of this. His grip tightened around her before her entire world went out of focus and she was slammed to the ground. With the last of the wind knocked from her and her vision swimming, he finally released her.

She coughed, gasping for night air that had never tasted so sweet. She grasped at the ground, bunching up handfuls of dirt and pebbles only to release them once more. Her whole body flexed and twitched like a broken fragile insect, and her eyelids fluttered like soft lace wings as her vision cleared. From above her he scoffed at mortal fragility and swung his leg over to straddle her naked body.

The ties in her hair had long come undone and her loose curls had fallen around her head like an auburn halo, which he relayed to her with sweet words of her coming fall. In sharp contrapoint, jagged stones scraped and bit into her back and the dagger-like talons of his wingtips planted into the ground on either side of her head close enough that she could scarcely move. Grimacing, her body stirred beneath him of its own self-perceptive accord at the familiarity. She shut her eyes tight and turned away from him as far as she could manage, though it did nothing to quell the warmth inside her. Only one thing would. It was distance she needed. 

As though privy to her conflict, he brought his full weight to bear on her and pinned her immobile, his hair cascading around them like a curtain and shrinking her world yet again. For a moment panic dislodged lust, but like a taut coil it sprung back with more insistence, more urgency. She squirmed beneath him seeking an escape from him and his awful presence. In furious distress, she began striking him on the chest with balled up fists, her distress escalating as he took her tantrum unflinchingly. Sharp bits of rock tore at her skin as she shook and pounded and she had to bite her lip to stop a keened whimper from escaping. 

His lips brushed softly against hers to capture the sound, and the tenderness of the gesture gave her pause and she quieted beneath him, though she trembled with animalistic panic. She lifted her gaze to him. When she saw the depth of desire reflected back on her, this time she couldn’t stop the whimper.

“Are you going to fight me, little one?” 

Tension fluttered in her stomach, but desire wound once more, ready to spring if needed. Blossoming need unfurled in the grey space between fear and arousal, filling and consuming everything in its path. In his voice, terrible yet not unkind, she found a special kind of madness, heady and unavoidable. She knew she had fallen to him, his proximity, and she remained still beneath him while timorously keeping his gaze. She would never be entirely certain what her eyes betrayed, but he took whatever they said in answer.

“Pity,” he said, roughly shoving his knee between her thighs. 

She shivered as his thigh ground against her; the barest of touch setting her skin and core alight as well as though he were flint to her tinder. Unconsciously, she arched her spine and hips to press into him and she felt claw-tipped fingers dig hard into her hip, blood and bruises to scold her against moving. These unspoken commands were familiar to her, something she thought she might tether to in the buffeting tide of lust he was conjuring within her. Instead, he would be the rock she would batter herself against, as obeying the subtle threat and confident authority just fed the fire he created. 

She knew what he would find when he withdrew his leg, but that hadn’t prepared her for the low growl that left him when he saw the glistening slickness of her need on his breeches, and she exhaled with a soft sigh. A satisfied smile danced on his lips and exposed the tips of his sharp teeth.

“No,” he mused as he rolled his hips against her, making her whimper again. “I suppose you wouldn’t fight; would you, Nisrah?”

He snaked his hand between them, his fingers dipping between her lower lips. He stroked her with the languorous skill of someone who possessed the patience and self-control to torment. Slow, rhythmic, gentle. She was gasping, she knew, but right now she was nothing but her body. “And you’re so wet for me.” His tone remained light, almost conversational and somehow that made it much worse. Her breath hitched as he drew some of her slickness and circled it up and around her clit, not giving the throbbing little bud the attention it craved, and she felt his stomach tighten against her. 

She felt shame; the same kind she had her whole life from letting him create these feelings inside her. But like a fan to a fire, her humiliation at being so easily played by him only served to stoke the embers hotter. And still he stroked her, rubbing, nudging in a rhythm like a giant pulse. She hated him, truly; but he was a musician, an artist, and she was his instrument and canvas. 

“Don’t,” she whispered, her voice somehow softer than the measured panting of her breaths. It trembled as she did under his ministrations.

Yrel tilted his head to the side, amused curiosity flitting across his features. “Hmm?” His wrist pivoted and two fingers slid inside her, curling and thrusting, letting his thumb graze across her most sensitive place with each stroke. She made a strangled noise as futile pleas died in her mouth, and she arched and struggled loose-jointed to swim against his tide. 

“Give yourself to me, little one.” She had opened more to him, though she didn’t remember it happening, and attempted to close herself off once more. His rocking was relentless, each thrust of his fingers more intense, pulsing in her lower body. She could feel the shift in her core and fighting against it felt like drowning, the effort like swimming upward against a turbulent, unfathomable depth. It would be easy if he were hungry, feral; when it’s messy there are mistakes, but this... this was a restrained focus of purpose that kept pushing her under just as she felt like she might break the surface. 

Then, suddenly, there was an undercurrent and she was pulled down to a place from which no struggle could free her. His lips were on hers, and his hand spoke his demand and pulled from her what it wanted. Her body was a single band of muscle that clenched and pulsed on its own against him, and she canted “no” like a prayer against his lips, as though a denial would change reality. 

As she stilled to heavy silence against him, he whispered “Yes,” and kissed away the tears he created.


End file.
